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Budgeting for "Next Month"... a MUST HAVE!!!

The entire purpose of a budget is to... well... budget. It makes it very difficult to do that when you can't look at the next month. Here I am, on the last day in November trying to put together my budget for next month on how and where all of my monies are going to go, but I can only tentatively do it in my head; unless I want to delete Novembers budget and use it as Decembers which would defeat the purpose of tracking trends. I love everything else about "mint" but can't plan on continuing to use it month after month if it doesn't have the tools to let me truly budget my money for the future.

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agreed!! I left Dave Ramsey site to be able to use a free budget program + phone app and this is severely lacking by mint.com. Makes no sense why the ability to set up numbers, even if money flow was not happening.

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That's not a bad idea Jake, why didn't I think of that. The only issue with that is that you have to go in at the start of each month to update the budget with what you have in your excel if you want to track it.

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Thankfully, my budget is relatively stable from month-to-month, however, I do use Google Calendar to remind me to make adjustments as necessary. If it is currently March, I set a reminder for April 1 to update the budget and in the text of the calendar entry I add the few items I need to change (e.g., increase grocery budget to XXX, remove gym membership, etc.). When April hits, I get an email with the items I need to adjust that I have likely already forgotten about. This has worked well for me for years despite agreeing with everyone that this should be a feature of Mint.

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Please make adding this feature a priority. I have kids, and therefore expenses swing from month to month, depending on school year, vacations, etc., and waiting until the first of the month to decide my budget is the definition of poor financial planning. It would be SO much better to be able to plan out 3, 6 or even 12 months in advance - both for expenses and savings for things like family vacations and back-to-school expenses.

I should mention everything else about Mint is fantastic! This is the one glaring issue that I constantly shake my head over.

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I gave up on Intuit's free budgeting program Mint because of this very issue. I now use Intuit's software product that I paid for and downloaded online, QuickBooks Basic 2015. You must pay for it but it's basically Mint with the advanced feature that allows user to plan a budget for the entire year or however you want. There's different versions with different prices, depending on what features are important to you such as investments vs. basic budgeting. I wrote a detailed description about a month ago somewhere in this conversation so other Mint users are aware. Mint is their free version. QuickBooks is their software for a cost that allows you to budget for the entire year. It's amazing. For me, it was worth paying for because I had too many frustrations with Mint.

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@cherylbeene.cb I did some looking into QuickBooks based off this comment and found the availability of both QuickBooks and Quicken, your previous comments mention Quicken starter which is what most people using mint are going to want as QuickBooks is more for businesses from what I gather. Its kind of funny that you have pay 35 dollars more to get support for Loans and Investment Accounts that Mint already handles for free. But you don't get the better budgeting features with the free version. So now do I pay for the better budgeting and keep mint to track my investments and loans. OR do I pay MORE to be able to see everything in one place and have the budgeting features. OR I could just grin and keep on with Mint.

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I simply chose to go with Quickbooks Starter because it lets me plan ahead for the entire year and gives me the features I needed that Mint offers. I don't have any loans or investments so the starter works for me. If you needed that, yes the Starter version wouldn't work. If Mint would allow me to plan ahead, I definitely would have stuck with it because it's wonderful and free. Sorry if my information was offensive in any way. I just wanted to let others know what is working for me regarding very basic budgeting but while also allowing to plan ahead. I chose to pay a little so I could plan ahead. It's a personal choice.

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My comment was meant to draw attention to the fact that "Quickbooks" is different from "Quicken" because I'm pretty sure you mean Quicken, though I could be wrong. And the rest of it is an internal struggle, not meant to be directed at you, sorry for the confusion. Because I do want the ability to plan ahead as well, but to go with the starter I would have to give up some features that I like from the free version. I was meaning to express frustration with still not having in my own opinion "a complete product" after shelling out for the starter. Most software models would "include everything in the free version" and add a few key features to entice the consumer to buy. But in this case in order to keep the features included in the free version, you have to buy the deluxe version of the product. Again that wasn't directed at you, its just kind of backwards the way that is set up, but probably done on purpose.

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This is my biggest problem with Mint and the only reason I'm currently looking at other budget programs. Waiting until the first of the month to make this month's budget defeats the purpose of planning ahead.

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I would really like to be able to view my next month budget. Looking at the Dave Ramsey Everydollar tool and the budget planner is much better than MINT. Any word on when viewing in the future option will be available?

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Yup.... still really, really wish we could do this. My budget now changes monthly and I'd like to be able to set things ahead of time and know if I'm going to run into trouble well before it happens =/ Please add this..... I absolutely love Mint but this is hard. I've starting clearing the budget from 11 months ago to calculate but it's clunky and frustrating.

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Hello Mint Mod folk - @Mint Jesse@Mint Mike@Mint KathrynWith the last response on this topic from a Mod about 8 months ago and over 270people now following this thread, wondering if it isn't time for some kind of update from the dev team on this "Budget Next Month" feature request - maybe multiple choice:a. Nope, not on the radarb. In the queue, but not at the topc. Since we're customer-focused company , moving up rapidly towards actiond. It'll be there next releasee. None of the above

Believe 8 months (or two years, according to @yanhenrichon below?) is long enough to at least warrant some kind of position - n'est-ce pas? Thanks!

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Unfortunately while the developers are always looking to improve functionality and do take user suggestions into consideration, this is not something currently planned for the near future. That's not to say it's a no, just not something that will happen soon. However I still encourage everyone to hit "Me Too" under the question, it's always possible that an influx of interest could help push it up the queue!

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I appreciate your answer as always @Mint Jesse - you know that bud - but I can almost hear the music playing as the dev team makes you with that answer.

However, with over 150 follows on this topic I now *throw down the gauntlet* <thud> (or..umm.. the goat , rather) and challenge you to find a topic up here with MORE followers that isn't connectivity related, but a true feature request

My point is - I'm just curious what's higher up on the 'user feature request' queue than allowing users to budget ahead, even one month - challenge accepted?

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I am RARELY one to comment on anything but this is a HUGE drawback on mint. here I am 11 pm on the night before my vacation and I can't use this to set my budget for the next month. ARGH. This has been more than an annoyance for the years I've used mint - I actually go back to a excel spreadsheet so I don't have to mess up the current month. SO RIDICULOUS.

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@Mint Jesse is there any place we users can see what is being worked on ? Being in software development myself, the introduction of bugs ( fixed last month Thank You!! ) tells me something is changing. The idea to be able to modify a future budget would be great. I'm closing on a house next week so obviously my budget needs to change to meet my change in expenses so there is a real need here for this change. Thank You and Thank You for taking the time to answer our questions.

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Having a list of things being worked on posted here in the community is something that's been discussed, but no news yet on when/if it would be available. However I'm happy to pass up the suggestion, it may help things along!

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This is definitely a top priority for me. My monthly budgets are not the same for every month. I'd like to begin preparing next month's budget before this month is over. Please reconsider backlog priority.

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Count me in. It's August 29th and given my success & failure with this months budget - I'd like to do some minor tweaking to september. But thanks to mint's current system I must now write a sticky note and paste it on my computer to be completed at a later date... Moderately unacceptable. Reminds me of an old corporate credit card that had a 60 day cycle. They wouldn't let you pay off the balance until the statement date. That situation also felt ridiculous.

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I have been using Mint in Canada for about 2 years. I immediately looked to see if this was an option (as it seems quite an obvious need when budgeting). But it wasn't and there are many threads about the lack of it. It has been promised and not provided. Mint.... this is a MUST for budgeting, please add this feature! Or I really may need to choose another program ~ forecasting is part of budgeting.

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This needs to be added. Basic budget planning 101 is to plan you budget a head of time. We have to sit down at the first of every month to build out the budget. Ive requests for this dating back as someone else commented years ago.

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@mintcares if you budget you know how important it is to budget at least 1 month if not 3 months ahead. If another software comes out that does budgeting and tracking as well as mint, which i have hard is coming soon, a company that is partnering with chase but will accept accounts from other companies, that is enough to make many people jump ship.

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@Mint Maggie@Mint Jesse Its ridiculous that you can't plan ahead - thats the whole point of a budget and makes this software lacking. The makers of the best tax software out there have to agree that this is a priority - at any reputable company internal finances for future months are planned and then compared to actuals after the month is done. Over time the plan becomes closer to actuals as you're meeting planning goals. This is a feature a lot of people be willing to pay for if a pro upgrade was offered as it is mission critical - more-so than any other feature I can think of in my opinion.

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Still waiting on this... Even if I have to budget for next month by using the "One time" budget feature. At least allow me to view future budgets... @Mint Maggie @Mint Jesse , ANY mods! This is a MUST HAVE for people who budget for the future... For crying out loud, it is January 31 at 9:30 p.m. and I can't even budget for February. A little (I mean a lot) ridiculous.

At least a response to everyone waiting for this would be appreciated.

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Agree with previous poster. Budgeting is vital, second only to planning ahead. This software has grown and become extremely versatile and expansive. It is a huge convenience and a great budgeting option, particularly for free software. We have a fairly exhaustive budget in a google spreadsheet and create monthly budgets a year in advance. I don't know what R&D is working on, or if my opinion is in the minority, but to me, having the ability to load these budgets at least a month in advance should be paramount to the software development road map.

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